It’s the time of year when marrows happen at an alarming rate and keen gardeners attempt to pass on these firm green zeppelins to family, friends, neighbours and work colleagues, all of who have no interest whatsoever in cooking or eating a marrow but due to politeness rarely come straight out and say so.
The over seventies are the best hope of marrow disposalists. Upon receiving an unsolicited marrow they will utter phrases like “I haven’t seen one of these for years”, “Blimey! What a whopper!”, “You don’t get many of these to the pound!” or “This takes me right back, my mum used to stuff a marrow regular as clockwork”. Then the vastly swollen mega-courgettes lounge about on their kitchen worktops like deep green seals, frightening small children who’ve never eaten their bland flesh.
Non-marrow growing work colleagues opine that if marrow was a thing people wanted to eat it would be readily available in supermarkets because capitalism. Every year gardeners plant courgette plants because optimism, hoping that this is the year they’ll really get into the taste and keep a close enough watch that marrows won’t occur. But they do.
Allotmenteers share horror stories by the shed about the unholy uses to which the bloated vegetables have been put over the years, with old Bob’s face taking on a haunted expression as he warns younger growers that under no circumstances should they attempt to make marrow wine. Mrs Bob’s strategy is now to slice it and slip it under the sheets of a lasagne. She has also been known to make chocolate marrow cake, which is ninety percent as good as chocolate cake.
Image from Pixabay by barleyb: